ISLAMABAD, April 18: Women and children are the worst sufferers in any conflict as they are targeted disproportionately.

This was stated by the women development, social welfare ministry secretary, Perveen Qadir Agha, while speaking at the inaugural session of a two-day seminar on ‘transforming cultures of conflict envisioning peace’ which opened here on Friday.

The seminar has been organized by three non-governmental organizations, Rozan, Mubriza and Sangat. Delegates from India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka are attending the seminar.

Ms Agha said organizing the seminar was timely initiative in the backdrop of war in Iraq.

“The notion of peace implies more then mere absence of conflict it is rather a state of complete concord among parties based on justice and fair play,” she said.

She said women had an enormous contribution to make towards furtherance and maintenance of peace. “South Asia is among the world’s poorest regions as 44 per cent of the world’s poorest people are living in this region where the state of people was deteriorating day by day owing to long standing conflicts,” she added.

She said the South Asian region needed transformation of culture of conflict into that of peace.